PRODIGIOUS MIRACLE OF THE HOLY ROSARY OF THE MOTHER OF GOD OUR LADY MARY OUR LADY, HAPPENED IN VILLIGEN, CITY OF GERMANY, on June 1, 1642, AND SENT FROM FLANDERS TO A FATHER OF THE ORDER OF SAINT DOMINIC, in the Royal Convent of St. Paul in Seville.

Place: Villigen, Alemania
Year: 1641
Event: Milagro, Miracle

The marvelous effects of the heavenly devotion of the most sacred rosary of Mary Queen of the Angels, in all times have illustrated the world, since its first inventor the glorious patriarch Guzman published it to free his devout co-fathers from enormous sins, in which by deceit of hell they miserably fell and to make them legitimate heirs of eternal glory. Witness to this truth last year 1641, when on the 28th of May in Villingen, a noble city of Germany, near the Hercynian forest, before the magistrate was denounced a widow named Anna Morgin, who, although very devout cofadra of the Holy Rosary, of having committed the horrendous crime of sorcery. For which they put her in jail and according to the law, they questioned her about the torment of her bad life and behavior, where she confessed flatly that for 7 years the devil in the form of a man, whom she had loved, visited her and without any honesty she enjoyed and that after the infernal minister made himself known she gave her soul and body to him, denying Jesus Christ and his saints, committing many other sins too ugly to write them down.

On the first day of June, which was Saturday (always happy for those devoted to the Rosary of Mary), the magistrate gathered to pronounce the sentence of death, which the aforementioned and other confessed wickednesses deserved. Fearful she was waiting in prison for such an unfortunate resolution and saying that she was very cold, she convinced the jailer to leave the room to light the stove, as it is used in those lands. The wretched woman being tied to the bed with chains and, naturally speaking, unable to take a knife or other weapons, the devil brought her one (as she later confessed), with which she gave herself two stab wounds in her throat so penetrating that half fallen from the bed, she drowned in her blood, not breathing more than a little through the wounds in her throat.

The jailer returned and frightened by such despair, he shouted through the window for his neighbors to help him quickly, sending also to warn the magistrate who was gathered in chapter, being this between 10-11 o’clock of the day, heard the voices a clergyman named Juan Cristóbal Ambroster who, next to the Church, not far from the prison was waiting for the hour to be at the divine office of the Nona. And going then with many other people, he found the abominable sorceress in the form referred to noting among other things, that horribly twisted mouth and eyes and out of the body a little breath that was cold, as totally dead with his head hanging from the bed, with no other sign of life which left her and continued on his way to the church.

The magistrate then sent two public surgeons to examine such a sad case and see if the poor woman was still alive to ensure that the soul was not lost. When they both arrived at the prison, they looked carefully at the two slashes in her throat and tried to sit her on the bed, but because she was as cold and as stiff as a stick, she fell down again. And when the surgeons noticed that, apart from a little breathing, she gave no sign of life, they left her as dead and hopeless of any remedy. They reported to the magistrate what they had seen, who justly, by definitive sentence, delivered the body, already judged dead, to the executioner, who took it outside the city to the place of torture and there burned it. Then one of the ministers of the city, curious to see if she was entirely dead and senseless, removing one of her stockings, pierced her leg, foot and sole with a pin. Now tired and seeing that she gave no sign of feeling anything, he put the pin all the way into the sole, wrapped it in an old blanket and tied at the bottom and at the top with cords, threw it into the cart, through a window that was 5 feet high. When the body fell, half of it was left outside so that it was necessary for the executioners to drag it into the cart and carry it to the place of the torture, as if it were a stick or a stone. Here was composed a heap of firewood, to which the cart came and with ropes tied to the feet of the body they dragged him on top of the heap. But (oh strange case!) scarcely was the wood lighted, when the sorceress, feeling the fire, began to wiggle shouting aloud: Woe is me! Woe is me! And she rolled so much, that from the fire she fell to the ground that in the sight of all she seemed as before she was dead. The servants of the executioner, tying her feet and head with cords, dragged her over the stake, and throwing some sticks on top of her and holding her down with hooks, she began a second time to wiggle and get up, saying aloud: Jesus Mary! And so she struggled that from the fire she fell to the ground, having all the hair of her head burned off, and the whole of her body all toasted from the fire, so that it was a horrendous spectacle, giving off an insufferable stench.

Being thus on the ground this wretched criminal, there came to her a man named Joan Hoener, a wool-washer, and with him two women, Anna Maria and Lucia Trantuyns, and asking if she wanted a priest to confess her sins, she answered, “Alas, I do.” Then the said John and the executioner, the one on foot and the other on horseback ran to the city to warn the magistrate of so strange a portent. And by his command, Don Jorge Grever, the local priest, sent his coadjutors*, Pablo Speth, with all haste, to the spiritual help of the afflicted woman. In the meantime, those around her consoled her with pious words, leading her to true contrition of her sins and firm hope in the divine mercy and asked among other things why she had wanted to kill herself and had distrusted the forgiveness of her wickedness and how, being tied up in bed, she had found the knife with which she had wounded, She answered that the devil had given her the knife and had raised her arm to execute the blow, because otherwise, due to the great weakness of the torments, she would not have had enough strength to execute it alone, but that for all this she had given her full consent, as she later told the priest with whom she confessed.

The confessor came and was received by the woman with great signs of consolation, he knelt down beside her and could not know how long she would live because she spoke very hollowly, breathing out the most because of her wounds and being very badly beaten by the fire and also because she was shivering so much from the cold that [calana] the water with which the executioner had extinguished the fire in her clothes. First he admonished her to have true repentance and sorrow for her sins in common, before examining her for each one in particular. And warning her in the speech of confession that she was not in danger of her life, he heard all her sins, absolving her sacramentally of them and imposing on her for penance five Pater noster and Ave Maria with a creed, all of which he helped her to pray. After completing her penance, the confessor told her that she wanted very much to receive the Holy Sacrament of the altar, which was difficult because it was getting dark and she feared that while she was going to receive it, she would die because she was far from the Church. She contented herself with these and other reasons, begging him to return her to the city and that the following day, which was Sunday, they would give her the Holy Sacrament and that on Monday she would die willingly.

It was six o’clock in the evening when the magistrate decided that she should be brought back to the city and having gained more strength and sense, she said to her confessor: “Oh sir, what is it in my foot that torments me so much? Take it off for the love of God”. Then the executioner came and took out the pin that the said minister of the city had put in his foot. The confessor returned to ask where the knife with which she had given herself the wounds had reached, and she said as before, that the devil had inspired her to kill herself, not wanting to leave her, and because she had consented to this, he had given her the knife and put it in her throat, because otherwise she could not do it, having lost her strength in the torment. The confessor added: “How have you been so insensitive that when the pin went into your leg, foot and sole of your foot, and also when you fell out of the window into the cart, you did not move? And where have you been after I have given you the two stabs in the throat?” She very much astonished at what he said, answered that the pricks of the pin or falling from the window into the carriage, she did not know but only that an Angel from heaven had taken her to the Tribunal of God Our Judge, who in the presence of Mary Our Lady had greatly reproved her because she had never confessed to herself of enormous sin of sorcery and others. Being so, that she might well have been forgiven and that nevertheless she was not to be eternally condemned, but was to return to her to have sorrow for her sins, going to confession and to comply with the penance of the confessor, that this grace was granted by the particular intercession of Mary, the blessed mother whose rosary she had rubbed with so much care. Having made this declaration, she begged her confessor that, supposing that through the intercession of the Mother of God, by means of her Holy Rosary, she had obtained from God true sorrow for her sins, she was defended from the pains of hell, She asked him to see to it that her three daughters, who were of tender age and knew how to pray the Holy Rosary, might also be enrolled in the heavenly Confraternity of the Sovereign Virgin of the Rosary, and that in recognition of the benefit of the wax which her bees bred and which was taken from the hives in the autumn, he would send a half pound to the church of Einfidel and another half pound to the Confraternity of the Holy Rosary in the convent of the Order of Preachers.

The following day, which was Sunday, her confessor returned to see her, first asking the jailer how she had spent the night, who answered that she was very well, although somewhat fatigued, but continuing to cry over her faults and good intentions to improve her life. Then the confessor, noticing that she was too weak and that her speech was diminishing, returned to reconcile her and prepare her for Holy Communion. And at 9 o’clock that day, judging her capable and desirous of her sacramental Redeemer, in the presence of two deputies of the magistrate and other persons, he gave her Holy Viaticum from his hand. Near evening she recovered her speech and the confessor in the presence of the jailer, ministers of the city and other persons, urged her again to give her the hour to God and to declare where after her wounding she had been supposed to have been that she had not felt the pin stick and to throw her out of the window. She, as before, was astonished at the question and answered that she knew nothing of the sticking of the pin in her leg, of falling from the window, and began with distinct and clear words to tell that by an angel she had been brought before the tribunal of God and that she had been rigorously reproved for her great sins and penance and that only by the powerful intercession of Mary Most Holy in whose hour with so much care she had prayed her blessed rosary had she been delivered from eternal damnation.

Monday, June 3, the magistrate sentenced her to be beheaded and burned. And before being taken to the torture, she confirmed all that was said above, giving a thousand thanks to the very sweet Virgin Mary of the Rosary and to her beloved son Jesus Christ for the great favor received. After being placed in the carriage, she behaved in a Christian manner on the road, exhorting everyone with fervent words to meditate on the divine mysteries of the Holy Rosary, for being the singular and only remedy to defend us from the disasters and dangers of the soul, which in this miserable life we are surrounded by, and persevering to the end in referring its praises (as we piously judge) she went to enjoy the rests of heaven. This miracle was examined and authorized in Germany by the most reverend Vicar of the bishopric of Costenze, who gave permission to print it. It was reprinted in Colona, with the authority of the most illustrious Vicar of the Archbishopric of Colonica. Then in Flanders, with the authority of the Most Reverend Bishop of Antwerp, it has been printed in the same city. And now again in Spain, with the permission of the Provisor and Vicar General of the Archbishopric of Seville by Ivan Gomez de Blas. And now in Madrid by Juan Sanchez,1642.   

To see the Spanish version, modernized and transcribed, click here.

To see the French translation, click here.